Winter Soldier AU
by LeoN WiNgsteiN
Summary: [spoiler warning] Callaghan dies in the fire, but Tadashi survives. Based off of what happens to the Winter Soldier. It's basically me trying to find out how to make this movie even sadder. More to come.
1. Chapter 1

The team pulled themselves out of the rubble, but Hiro scrambled back over it to the robot, who was stuck in a small crater of debris. Yokai rose on his pillar of microbots in front of the rest of the team, half-threatening them, waiting for their next move. Some of the microbots supported what must have been a part of the portal that they had seen on the screen earlier. GoGo, Honey Lemon, and Fred stood in ready stances, anticipating the imminent fight ahead. Wasabi, less sure, turned to them.

"What's the plan?" shouted Wasabi. He held up his laser plasma blades at the ready.

"Get the mask!" shouted GoGo, as she zoomed past him. She skidded up the broken supports for the portal toward Yokai and tossed a disc at him. He called up the microbots to knock them aside, and shifted downward, to the floor. Honey Lemon leapt down after her, landing on a squishy chemical compound she quickly concocted. She hid behind a pillar as Yokai chased GoGo around the room. An idea popped into her head, and she typed in a quick compound into the purse, and out popped a new ball. She took a deep breath before leaping out from behind the pillar—just in time to be beaned in the head with a disc from GoGo that Yokai dodged at the last moment. The ball slipped out of her hand, and fell to the ground. A slippery substance spread across the floor, and GoGo's momentum wasn't stopping—she slid on the blue splotch, right into Honey Lemon, knocking them both backward to the floor.

Fred took this opportunity to leap into action. "Fire breath!" he announced as he spewed fire from his suit's mouth, spinning as he went, in the direction of Yokai. The villain shot a wave of microbots upward, catching Fred and knocking him into GoGo and Honey Lemon.

Now, Yokai looked to Wasabi, who froze. Then, he realized that he had to do _something_. He lifted his laser plasma blades threateningly. "You wanna dance, huh?" he asked, waving the blades slightly. "You'll be dancing with me!"

Yokai sent streams of microbots at Wasabi, and he cut them up with his laser plasma blades as he did. He sliced, and cut, and continued to hack at the streams of microbots as they were hurled at him, successfully deflecting them as they tried to reach him. "Hey!" he exclaimed when he realized that he had batted them all away. "Yeah! That's right, that's what you're dealing with!" He pumped his fist into the air, and then realized why the streams of microbots had stopped shooting after him: his feet had been cemented to the ground by the microbots. "Oh," he uttered, before being flung to the side by the microbots, slamming into the pile of his teammates.

Yokai looked up from this pile of dispatched opponents to look for the other two, and found them—blasting straight toward him. He put up his hands in defense, not even being able to react with the microbots in his surprise, and was knocked backward, past the place where the portals had been perched, and down onto the metal floor. As he went, a sea of microbots came up to the two heroes, knocking Baymax backward, and causing Hiro to tumble down after Yokai. As the masked madman hit the floor, the mask bounced off and slid away. Hiro tucked and rolled as he landed, and got to his feet, Yokai still getting to his own. Hiro snatched up the mask and held up his hands in fists, ready to do what he could. He might be small, but Yokai didn't have the microbots on his side anymore. He was just a normal guy.

Yokai finally got up, straightened out, and turned to Hiro. Hiro's heart stopped, and his hand lost grip of the mask, letting it bounce to the floor. Behind him, the others, recovered from their pileup, crowded around the railing, gasping as they did. Hiro reached out a hand, but then pulled it back.

"Tadashi?" he asked. And there he was, his brother, who he thought had died in the fire that had taken his microbots and Callaghan—but here he was! The right side of his face was warped with burns, the hair singed off, and the left side of his face looked a little worse for wear, but there he was, his brother, alive.

Tadashi glared at Hiro. "Who the hell is Tadashi?" he growled. A silence filled the space, and no one moved, unsure of how to proceed.

Then, in an instant, Tadashi swooped down, grabbed ahold of the mask, put it back on, and in the same fluid motion, used the microbots to crash through the ceiling of the facility, piece of the portal in tow. Hiro stood there, his mouth slightly open, looking at the spot where Tadashi, his brother, had just been. "You… died…" he murmured, as his team leapt over the railing and joined him down below.

"Hiro!" said Honey Lemon, grabbing ahold of his shoulders. "Hiro! Are you alright?" GoGo was surveying the hole, and Baymax pushed past Honey Lemon.

"Hiro," commented Baymax, "you seem—distressed. Can you rate your pain on a…"

"Baymax, wings," commanded Hiro. The wings popped out of the back of Baymax's suit on command. Hiro ducked under Honey Lemon's arms and climbed aboard his back. "Go," he said, and Baymax activated his rocket boots, propelling them upward.

"Hiro, wait!" shouted Wasabi. But it was too late—he was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

Hiro stormed into the garage, tossing his helmet to the side as he did, not caring that it crashed into some other equipment he had set up in that corner and reducing it to a pile on the ground. He sat himself in his spinning chair and whirled around to face his computer. He began to punch in a series of codes.

"Hiro, your neurotransmitter levels are fluxuating in an alarming way. You appear to be distressed." Baymax clumsily worked his way across the garage to his patient.

"Baymax, I'm fine," said Hiro. He pounded in a few more commands before spinning back around and loosing Baymax's helmet from his head. He then overturned it and began poking at its internals.

"What are you doing?" asked Baymax as Hiro connected a wire to the helmet, placed it on the desk, and pounded in some more commands.

"I'm upgrading your enhanced sensor," said Hiro. He unplugged the helmet and shoved it back onto Baymax's head. "You weren't able to pick up Tadashi, so I figure something must have been wrong with the scanner. I double-checked it all, and you should be able to find him now."

"I already saw Tadashi with my scanners," said Baymax, holding up a finger. "My scanners were fully functioning and operational."

Hiro looked up from his computer. "You saw him?" he asked, standing from his chair. "You saw him, and didn't tell me?"

"You asked me to locate the masked man. You seemed to be undergoing some sort of psychological trauma relating to Tadashi's death. According to my psychological health protocols, I was to break that news to you slowly in a nurturing environment, where you could easily share your feelings."

"Tadashi was dead!" exclaimed Hiro. "He was dead, and you knew he wasn't."

"I made a calculation…"

"Baymax, open data port." Hiro reached out his hand, and waited him to push out the small circle in his chest. It didn't come, and Hiro's eyes flitted to Baymax's optical receptors.

"Your hormone and stress levels indicate anger, and I do not think that you should be making major decisions…"

Baymax's sentence was cut off when Hiro tapped the circle, opening his data port. Two cards stuck out of their slots: one, red and labeled with a skull—the one with Baymax's martial arts programming—and the second, green and labeled in an even handwriting—the one that held the meticulously programmed nursing protocols, created by Tadashi. Hiro pulled the green one out and rolled back in his chair to his computer, where he inserted the card and began clicking.

"Hiro, Tadashi programmed me with…"

"Tadashi is gone."

"Tadashi is here," said Baymax.

"No, he's not—that's what people have been saying, ever since he…" Hiro's voice faltered. "…died. He's not here. He's out there, somewhere, with the microbots. And I need you to find him."

"Will you disable my programming?" asked Baymax. Hiro continued to click though the files on the drive on the computer.

"No," said Hiro. "I'm just rerouting it, taking out some of the protocols and safeguards Tadashi… put in there…" His clicking slowed for a moment before picking up again. He was surprised when he felt a light weight on his shoulder. He turned to see that Baymax had removed the arm pieces of armor and had placed his hand on Hiro.

"Please," said Baymax, "do not remove those programs. Tadashi worked hard putting them in."

"Tadashi isn't here anymore. He's some sort of a villain now—and I need to find him."

"Tadashi is here," said Baymax. Hiro glanced at the windows of the garage, wondering if his brother had followed them back to the Lucky Cat. Then, he realized that Baymax was pointing at his own chest with the arm that wasn't preoccupied with "comforting" Hiro.

Hiro stood and removed the chest piece of Baymax's suit, careful of the still-open data access point. He placed the piece of the suit on the floor of the garage. When he stood again, where Baymax would usually display the one-to-ten pain rating scale, was Tadashi's face. It was a picture from before the explosion: his face was whole, and his eyes were bright. Then, the picture started moving. "Hello! My name's Tadashi Hamada," the recording began. "This is my robotics project—trial one." He reached forward, toward the screen, and Hiro realized that it was Baymax himself who had recorded this video—it was from Baymax's point of view. In the video, inflated vinyl arms rose up and whacked against Tadashi until he was able to shut off the robot. Then, the video was cut short.

Another video started immediately afterward. "This is Tadashi Hamada, and this is my robotics project, trial two…" He reached up and started up Baymax.

"Hello! I am Baymax," said the robot. Tadashi's smile widened until Baymax continued: "Hello! I am Baymax. Hello! I am Baymax. Hello! Hello! Hello!" Tadashi shook his head and pressed the button again, both shutting Baymax down and ending the recording.

Another started up. "Tadashi Hamada. This is my robotics project, trial three…"

"This is my robotics project, trial twenty-four..."

"This is my robotics… _sigh_… project, trial eighty-seven…"

"Hello," came Baymax's voice from the recording. "I am Baymax, your personal healthcare companion."

Tadashi looked up, and his smile stretched across his face. "You work!" he exclaimed. "I mean, of course—finally…" He composed himself and held his arms out. "Baymax, scan me."

In the recording, a thin light ran over Tadashi's body. "Done," said Baymax. "You seem to be in good health." Tadashi pumped his fist into the air and tried to continue talking through his smile.

"Thank you, Baymax," said Tadashi. "Thank you so much—I am satisfied with my care."

The screen on Baymax's chest froze on Tadashi's smiling face. Hiro stared at it, and glanced back to the computer screen. "Tadashi programmed me for a reason,"' said Baymax.

Hiro looked down at his hands and trembled slightly. He reached up, and hit the backspace key a few times, before ejecting Tadashi's memory chip. He held it in shaking hands and inserted it back into Baymax's data port, pushing it shut as he did. He went to back up, but found that he was held to Baymax's chest by his strong, balloon-like arms. He pulled back, but the surrendered himself to the hug. He shook as he began to cry into the large robot's chest. He wrapped his arms around Baymax, and pulled himself into him. "There, there…" said Baymax softly.

They stayed like this until a knocking at the door of the garage interrupted them. Hiro released himself from the hug, wiping his tears away with his arm as he went. "It's probably Aunt Cass," he said, pushing Baymax's armor under the desk. "Put it away, Baymax," he continued, as he went to the door and opened it—

To reveal his team, standing in their normal, street clothes rather than their super suits. "Hiro!" exclaimed Wasabi. "We were worried about you when…"

"When you left us on the island with no way of getting back," finished GoGo, popping a bubble of gum.

"Don't worry," said Fred, "we got a ride back on the family chopper. We were just worried about you, dude."

"I'm sorry, guys—when I saw him, I just kind of…" Hiro paused. "Freaked out."

"We don't blame you at all," said Honey Lemon. "Hiro, we freaked out, too, and I can't even imagine what it must have been like for you…"

"Thank you, Honey Lemon. Thanks to all of you," said Hiro, Baymax joining him at his side. "But Tadashi is still out there, and I know I _need_ to find him—and you do, too. There are too many unanswered questions. But I'm sure we can find out why Tadashi's like he is, and help him—if we work together." He stood back and let what he had said sink in.

"Well," said Fred, bouncing a bit. "What are we waiting for?" He looked to the others, each of them with the beginnings of a grin on their faces. "Let's go!"


	3. Chapter 3

"Hey guys," said Fred, flopping into a chair. "I think I know who's behind all of this."

"Who?' asked Wasabi. Hiro turned from his computer to listen, and GoGo and Honey Lemon turned from their in-depth conversation about whether or not a gaseous chemical compound could reduce friction without being poisonous.

"Okay, okay, hear me out here," he said, holding up his hands. "And keep in mind, this is just a theory and stuff, but: think about it. Whoever this is, they've obviously had some sort of insider's scoop on how the microbots work, to get to use them so fast."

"Tadashi was there when I invented them," said Hiro, slumping in his chair.

"Yeah, but he doesn't have the intense knowledge of the tech to mass-produce them to the scale that they have been," said Fred. "And there has to be someone else with him. I mean, if he was doing what he was doing on purpose, why would he have gotten all—burned and stuff while doing it? He would've, like, stolen the plans or whatever before he 'died'. This super villain dramatic thing really isn't Tadashi's style."

"So who's behind all this?" asked GoGo. "Spit it out."

Fred drew in a deep breath, and said: "Professor Callaghan." The incredulous looks he received were not softened by his pseudo-jazz hands.

"What?" asked Wasabi.

"Callaghan's dead," said GoGo. She blew a bubble and popped it.

"We went to his funeral," said Honey Lemon. "We need to accept his death and move on with the grieving process."

"We were at Tadashi's funeral, too," said Fred. "And look how that turned out." He glanced to Hiro, who looked away. "Listen, I know it seems crazy, but he knew more than anyone about magnetic bearing servos, right? I mean, didn't he invent them? He could reverse-engineer the microbots in, like, a second!"

"That doesn't explain why he used Tadashi," said Wasabi.

"Or why he needs to steal something he could have secretly stolen and reverse-engineered safely in his lab at SFIT," said GoGo. "It doesn't add up."

"It's better than nothing," said Hiro, standing from his desk chair. "And until we come up with anything better, I think it's a lead that we should follow. Worst comes to worst, Callaghan's dead, and he died in the fire."

"No," said Wasabi, "worst comes to worst, Callaghan _didn't_ die."

* * *

Tadashi sat in the chair with his elbows resting on his knees and his head in his hands. He stared at the floor between his feet. He didn't even look up when the door clanged shut behind someone as they entered the cell of a room. His ears, mainly the one that hadn't been deformed by burning, followed the footsteps as they approached.

"Yokai!" exclaimed the person, welcoming himself into the room like it was a good friend's dinner party. Tadashi heard as the man dragged forward a metal folding chair from the side of the room, propped it open, and sat in it. He leaned in. "Why the long face?"

Tadashi turned his head, meeting the dazzlingly white smile. The man was all business—the human embodiment of "dress to impress." He was in charge. That was what Tadashi knew—_all_ he knew about the man—Alistair Krei was _in charge_.

"The boy—at the lab—I knew him." There was something familiar about the boy—his eyes, his short pants—that Tadashi couldn't get out of his mind. There was something _there_—he knew him.

"You may have seen him during training, or in the briefing videos," said Krei, his smile not faltering for a second, even after a brief flick of his eyes to the camera in the corner of the room. "He's a student at SFIT—one of Callaghan's."

"He knew me…"

"Yokai," said Krei, placing a hand on Tadashi's burnt shoulder, the scarred skin barely registering the touch. "He's nothing but another obstacle. And what do we do to obstacles?"

Tadashi didn't answer. He looked back to the ground. Krei's eyes flicked to the camera in the corner once more, and he gave it a quick nod. He patted Tadashi's deformed skin, not afraid to look at him, even in his state. This was all he was, a tender vulnerable thing. And he would be shaped back to his will.

Behind him, the door opened again, and two men in white coats entered. They passed Krei and went to Tadashi. They took him by his armpits and pulled him back into the chair. He let them. He stared blankly at the wall behind Krei as the men in white coats strapped down his arms and legs.

Alistair stood and placed the folding chair back against the wall and walked to the door, stopping in the frame. He turned back. "Yokai," he said, "you've got a big assignment coming up. Your head needs to be in it." Then, to the men in the white coats: "Wipe him."

The door clanged shut behind Krei as one of the men in white placed a rubber mouth guard between Tadashi's teeth and the other secured the electrical nodes at his temples. As Alistair walked away from the room, the door almost muffled the sound of the electricity surging through the boy's body inside. His prize-winning grin remained intact.

His assistant was waiting for him in the hallway, and walked with him to the elevator. He selected the top floor, and his assistant stood patiently next to him, at full attention.

"Do you have the mask?" he asked once the doors had closed, the manicured smile dropping from his face.

"It's in your office, sir," replied his assistant, her tone even and calm.

"I want the control protocols deconstructed, re-constructed, and updated." He turned to her. "If he begins to remember, everything we've got is over."

"Yes, sir," said his assistant.

"I mean, it's that _damn_ brother of his," said Krei, pounding his fist into his hand. "He triggered something inside of Yokai." The doors of the elevator opened, and Alistair stepped out into his penthouse office, smoothing down his suit jacket as he did. He tugged at his cufflinks, making sure he was in perfect shape.

"Do you see this view?" he asked. He stretched out his arms, gesturing to the cityscape that stretched out in front of him. The city was lit up at night, the streetlights and neon advertisements man-made stars and nebulas. He turned to his assistant. "What's missing from it?" he asked. "Do you know?"

"No, sir," said the assistant, hands clasped professionally behind her back.

"I'll tell you what's missing," said Alistair, turning and walking toward the glass. "Me." He paused. "My name should _cover_ this city. Imagine—Krei Tech in every facet of everyday life." San Fransokyo spread out in front of him. "This is why the recovery of my technology, and the new campus, are so important," he continued. "We start with the new campus, and soon, we expand to ten more. Soon, Krei Tech will be synonymous with progress." He turned from the window, the city lights casting shadows across his face.

"And I'll be there," he said, "controlling it all."


	4. Chapter 4

"I don't know if I like going to school like everything's normal," said Wasabi, piloting his tiny rental car, the one Fred had set him up with after his own had crashed into the bay, through traffic at a reasonable pace. "I mean, things are kind of shaken up."

"I would've thought you'd have been all over this plan," said GoGo. "I mean, getting back to the normal order of things might fall right into your realm of coping mechanisms."

"I just mean, I think that it's weird that we're just going back to school like our best friend isn't being brainwashed into doing—whatever it is that he's doing."

"I think we just need to not bust our cover," said Honey Lemon from the backseat. "I mean, Hiro is looking for Tadashi. There's nothing more that we can do without knowing where he is, and this way we aren't just hovering over Hiro in his garage. We're actually working on things that could help us."

"Yeah," agreed GoGo, popping her gum bubble and leaning forward in her seat. "I mean, I don't know about you two, but I'm not going to be paying attention to classes or whatever. I've got one thing on my mind: getting my stuff better so that _when_ we face Tadashi, I'll be ready."

"Ready for what?" asked Wasabi.

"I don't know," said GoGo. She rolled her eyes. "That's why I have to be prepared."

The car fell into silence after that, the only sounds coming from the traffic around them. Even that seemed to have slowed down to little more than a murmur. GoGo glanced out the window aimlessly, and she turned back to Wasabi.

"Does something bother you about the traffic today?"

"Besides the fact that it's slower than even _I_ like to drive, no," said Wasabi.

"How about the mysterious black sedans boxing us in, and the armored van behind us?" GoGo suggested, and Wasabi and Honey Lemon looked out at the cars surrounding them. It was true that they didn't look like the normal morning traffic.

"Maybe we got caught in the middle of a convoy..." Honey Lemon trailed off, because it wasn't a convoy. They were being blocked in.

"What—?" There was a loud _clang_ as something landed, hard, on the roof of the small car. Wasabi and Honey Lemon let out small squeaks of fear, and Wasabi almost swerved out of his lane before catching the wheel and straightening the car out. There was _something_ on the roof of the car, however, and the three of them tilted their eyes upward.

Suddenly, an arm shot down through the windshield, grabbing ahold of the steering wheel and yanking it clear from the car. It took Wasabi a moment to realize that it wasn't just any arm, but an arm made entirely of microbots. The microbots rearranged themselves and formed a steeply pointing drill-shape, pointed directly at Wasabi.

"Eek!" he shouted, and a giant pointed lance of microbots shot straight toward him. Wasabi shut his eyes tightly against the thing, and braced himself for it. The microbots did not reach him, though, and when he opened his eyes, he saw GoGo pulling back her leg from where she had kicked straight through the microbot drill. The bots themselves were already re-forming back into a solid shape above the car, which continued to race forward, Wasabi's foot pressing hard on the gas pedal.

"Hit the brakes!" shouted GoGo, but Wasabi was too terrified to do anything but scream. She rolled her eyes and grabbed ahold of the e-brake, and pulled up hard. The rear of the tiny car whipped around as the car rapidly slowed, and Yokai was thrown from the roof, just barely catching himself in a cradle of microbots before he skidded across the pavement ahead of the car. The black cars that were surrounding it pulled to a stop around the car as well, and GoGo had just enough time to push her two friends' heads down before men dressed in all black stepped out of the cars and began to shoot at the car.

"This is not a very good commute route," said Honey Lemon, holding her head down between her knees. She looked up to GoGo. "How are we going to get out of here?

"Wait," said Wasabi. He reached behind his seat, flinching every time a bullet struck the car. The windows perforated, and then shattered inward, and he rummaged through his backpack and pulled out a small stylus.

"What is that?" asked Honey Lemon.

"Something I've been working on," said Wasabi. He carefully moved back to he was facing forward, and waited a moment. There was a brief pause, as the four gunmen reloaded their guns. Wasabi took a deep breath, and popped up from his crouch, aiming the tip of the pen at the gunman out of his side of the car. A solid, precise beam of red light projected from the tip, making a bead directly on the man's gun. Wasabi held it for just a moment, and a hole burned right through the gun, causing it to discharge into the man's foot. The laser continued to burn to the man's skin, and he gasped. He took a step backward reactively and found himself flipping over the concrete barrier on the side of the overpass, dropping down to the hard pavement below.

"That was… really cool," said GoGo.

"Yeah," said Honey Lemon. "But they're…" She was cut off as the shooting began again, and Wasabi was forced to duck back down. His hands were shaking, holding the small pen.

"That's a neat gadget," said GoGo. "Do you have anything else?"

"No," said Wasabi.

"Give it to me, then," said GoGo, and she took it from his shaking hands. She glanced out over the edge of the car, and ducked back down immediately before she could be hit by any of the bullets flying by. She pulled the gum out of her mouth and placed it carefully in the middle of the car door next to her. She then carefully aligned the laser with the piece of gum and pressed the small button on the side of it. For a moment, nothing seemed to happen, but then the gum briefly sizzled, and the laser burned straight through the gum, the door it was stuck on, and the gun held by the man outside of her door. GoGo peeked her head to the window very briefly, and was able to see that she had also burnt through the man's leg somewhat, and he had collapsed to the ground. She released the button.

"Two down," she said.

"But what about Tadashi?" asked Honey Lemon, glancing through the broken windshield quickly. There was a sea of microbots stewing ahead of them, and Yokai stood in the center, controlling their actions with his mind.

"We've only got a matter of seconds before he attacks," said Wasabi. It wasn't just his hands that were shaking now.

"Give me the pen," said Honey Lemon, as she rummaged through her own purse. "I've been working on something, too." GoGo handed it over.

"I hope you know what you're doing," she said. Honey Lemon winked at her.

Outside of the car, Yokai held up a fist, indicating to the two shooters who were still firing on the car that they should stop. The car itself looked like it had gotten design tips from a golf ball, divots from the bullets all around it. Yokai glided forward on the microbots, pulling them up and around the car, surrounding it so that there was no way of escape for the people inside. With a swipe of a mass of microbots, Yokai removed the roof of the small car, and looked down into it to find nothing but a smoking hole that went not only through the bottom of the car, but through the bridge that supported it, as well. Peering through, Yokai could see a yellowish blob of some sort of substance directly below it.

Yokai let out a cry of anger, and the sea of microbots picked up the car and flung it off of the side of the overpass, letting it crash down below. He started to the edge to follow it, and after his prey, but he stopped when the sound of approaching sirens came to his good ear. He jerked his head around and could see in the distance the flash of police lights. A voice echoed in his head, Krei's voice: "Don't get caught—you're not ready for the limelight _quite_ yet." Krei was in charge. He had to do what Krei said. And Krei didn't want him to be found by the police. He motioned to the two standing shooters to get back into their cars. He himself went to the shooter who was still on the bridge, clutching his leg.

"Y-Yokai!" the man said. His hands were wrapped around an already cauterized wound that ran about halfway through his leg. He gritted his teeth. "Help me—"

His plea was cut off as Yokai sent a spike of microbots through his chest. The microbots receded and formed back into the sea. Yokai cast one last glance back in the way of the approaching sirens, and disappeared in the opposite direction.

Two blocks away, Wasabi, Honey Lemon, and GoGo caught their breath. GoGo peeked around the corner of the building against which they were leaning, and reported back to the others. "He ran when he saw the police coming," she said.

"He's getting bolder," said Wasabi, whose breaths were coming in jaggedly.

"We aren't going to the lab quite yet," said Honey Lemon. "We've got to get to Hiro first. We need to save Tadashi."

"Unfortunately," said GoGo, "he doesn't seem much like the kind of guy you can save." She glanced back over her shoulder, and then faced the other two. "He's the kind of guy you _stop._"


	5. Chapter 5

Fred wandered into the lab, alone. He did that quite often, actually. His student ID got him into the building—any student could get in, during normal operating hours, at least. He had his corner of the lab, usually with a few back-copies of _Ultimate X-Men_ he hadn't read in a while to keep him company until everyone else showed up. Today didn't seem to be much different. When he switched on the light, the only thing waiting for him was his mascot costume, slumped against the wall.

Fred dropped down into his chair and reached over to his stack of comics. He froze, hand on the top issue of the stack, when something caught his eye. The door to Callaghan's office, which was usually closed against the ruckus of the lab, was slightly ajar. Fred brought his hand back and stood up slowly. He looked around the lab and saw that there was no one else around. There was no reason for Callaghan's door to be open, which made Freed curious as to why it was. He crept toward it, and slowly pressed his palm against it, opening the door inward.

The office looked much as it had before Callaghan had died, minus a few potted plants that had been removed by the custodial crew. Not much else had moved, as far as Freed could tell, but he had only been in the office once before. It had been over a year ago, maybe more—

* * *

_"__You know, I see you hanging around a lot," said Callaghan, pointing to Fred with the butt of his pen. Fred shifted slightly uncomfortably in the seat._

_ "__Yeah," he said. "I'm pretty, y'know, interested in science and stuff. It's cool to see those guys in action and all."_

_ "__I know what you mean," said Callaghan, a twinkle in his eye. He paused for a moment, his thoughts hovering on something else, but then he refocused and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk. "You're interested, but you never join in, do you?"_

_Fred sat up. "Professor Callaghan, I don't mean to, like, get in the way of their work, or anything—uh…"_

_ "__No, no, you misunderstand," said Callaghan, slightly chuckling. "I don't mean to kick you _out_ of the lab. I want to invite you _in_."_

_Fred didn't reply at first—he just stared at Callaghan, his mouth slightly agape. "Uh, dude—Professor, there has to be some sort of a mistake…"_

_ "__None at all," said Callaghan. "Your grades could use some improvement, sure, but they have been on an upward trend since you've begun hanging around her a few semesters ago. I don't see why you can't continue that upward trend while actually getting hands-on with the experiments your peers are conducting. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if you were leading your own research by the end of the year."_

_They sat in silence for a moment, making an eye contact that Fred had a hard time breaking. Then, he was finally able to speak, looking down. "Look, man—Professor Callaghan—I appreciate the offer, really, but I'm not smart like these guys are. I'm more—just me. And that's cool. I'd much rather just kind of help from the background." He shrugged. "It's just not my thing." He stood, and walked to the door. "Thanks, though."_

_ "__Fred," said Callaghan, catching him before he left the room completely. "Just—consider the offer open for whenever, in case you do feel like you want to take me up on it." Fred turned away, and left the room._

* * *

That was the last time Fred had been inside of Callaghan's office. And truthfully, it was the last full conversation he had had with Callaghan. He had never felt unwelcome in the lab, but Fred couldn't help but feel like he'd let him down—and he wasn't the only person Fred was worried about disappointing.

There was a slight ticking now, something that Fred hadn't noticed from the outside. It was very faint, but it was rhythmic, and certainly coming from somewhere in the room. Fred took a step forward, still not sure how the respectful way to investigate—or intrude into—a dead man's office was. _Of course_, thought Fred, _he might not really be dead_. It was his own theory, after all, that Callaghan was behind this all. Maybe, just maybe, the office door was open because Callaghan had stopped by. That would prove that he was alive, and therefore behind _everything_.

Fred went around to the back of the desk, no longer held back by any ideas of politeness. If he had a chance to figure this all out, it would be worth disrespecting the villain's office, because he wasn't really dead. If he _was_ really dead, that was too bad, but he had to stick with the theory until it was proven wrong.

Now that he was behind the desk, Fred realized that the ticking itself was coming from within the desk itself. He scanned the top of it, and found nothing but a keyboard and computer monitor, as well as a cup with a few pens. To the side of the monitor was a picture of a young woman in a smart-looking suit with a vague resemblance to Professor Callaghan. Fred's eyes caught on it for a moment before opening the top drawer in the desk.

The drawer held a few bundles of wires and a few legal pads. The source of the ticking, however, was a small object near the back of the drawer, knocking into the side of the drawer repeatedly, rhythmically. Fred reached in and pulled it out, holding it between his forefinger and thumb. It was a microbot just like the kind Tadashi as using to be a bad guy. Fred shoved the thing in his pocket and shut the drawer. He could feel a slight tickle in his pocket as the thing tried to go in the same direction it had been trying to go in when it was in the drawer, just a weak tug directed toward its brothers.

He left the room, shutting the office door behind him. He couldn't prove that Callaghan had been there, but someone with access to microbots had snuck into his office, which was some pretty strong circumstantial evidence. He sunk down into his chair once again and pulled out his phone. He dialed up Honey Lemon, and after a few rings, she answered with video.

"Fred!" she exclaimed. "You're okay!"

"Uh, yeah," he said. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Yokai attacked us," said GoGo, over Honey Lemon's shoulder. She ducked back down right after, and Fred realized that they were walking.

"What happened?" asked Fred. "And why aren't you guys in Wasabi's rental car?"

"Because some guys shot it up after Yokai _attacked_ us," said Wasabi from somewhere out of the cell phone's frame.

"Fred," said Honey Lemon, "we're on our way to the Lucky Cat Café to find Hiro. Can you meet us there?"

"Yeah, sure," said Fred. "And dudes, I found something, too."

"Fred," said Honey Lemon, her face grave. "Be careful. Tadashi knows who we are, and knows we know who he is. And he wants us gone."

"Then I'm on my way already," said Fred, jumping out of his chair and to his feet. Honey Lemon gave a small smile, and ended the call. Fred slipped his phone into the pocket not holding the microbot and dashed out of the building, leaving the lab and Callaghan's empty office behind.


	6. Chapter 6

The sun was high in the sky was Hiro piloted Baymax down from the wind turbines to the garage behind the Lucky Cat Café. He hadn't found anything from up there, even with Baymax's upgraded sensors, but that didn't surprise him—if Tadashi, and whoever was controlling him, didn't want to be found, he wouldn't be.

Hiro _was_ surprised to find the rest of his team waiting for him when he touched down, though. He dismounted his robot and pulled off his helmet. "What're you guys doing here?" he asked. "Shouldn't you be at school?"

"It's a long story," said Wasabi. "You see, we…"

"Tadashi attacked us on our way to SFIT," interjected GoGo.

"Okay, maybe it isn't that long," said Wasabi.

"Are you guys okay?" asked Hiro. "Baymax, can you scan them?"

"We're fine," said Honey Lemon, just as Baymax indicated that his scan was complete.

"A few slight skin abrasions and minor bruising," said Baymax, holding up a finger. "As well as an elevated heart rate. I recommend an antiseptic and a moment to calm down."

"Baymax, I love where you're coming from," said Wasabi, "And normally I'd be all for it…"

"Right now we've got to do something, though," said Honey lemon. She looked up the street to see Fred rapidly approaching, stumbling over his own feet on his way down the hill.

"Dudes!" he exclaimed as he tripped into Wasabi, who caught him and set him upright. Fred caught his breath with a few deep breaths. "So I think—Callaghan's—the bad—guy…"

"What?" asked Hiro. "Did you find proof?"

Fred, bent over with his hands on his knees, held up one hand, and dropped a tiny twitching black microbot into Hiro's gloved hand. Hiro examined it between his thumb and forefinger. "Where did you get this?"

"It was in Callaghan's desk," said Fred. He stood up, facing Hiro. "Which means he either broke in himself or sent Yokai to do it for him."

"This is great," said Hiro. "We can use this microbot to find the others, and Tadashi."

"Or go in the opposite direction," said Wasabi. Hiro raised an eyebrow, and Wasabi sighed and continued. "Look: whether we want to face it or not, Yokai tried to _kill_ us today. We didn't avoid getting beaten up or captured or something today. We avoided being _killed_. And we narrowly avoided it." There was no reply from the others. "Look—I love Tadashi, but I'm not sure there's any Tadashi left in there."

A silence went through the group. Honey Lemon's eyes darted from Wasabi to Hiro and back. GoGo kept her gum firmly in her cheek, not even daring to speak. Finally, Hiro did.

"I'm aware," he began, his voice even and cool but betraying him with a slight break, "that Tadashi isn't himself. But he's _alive_, and that's more than we can be thankful for right now. We need to find him, and help him, whatever it takes." He took a breath. "He would do the same for you, were you being controlled, by an evil, um, guy." He caught Wasabi's eyes. "And _I'm_ going after him, and I'm going to _save_ him. With," he turned away from the group, "or without you."

Wasabi didn't respond right away, and Honey Lemon reached out a hand to him before withdrawing. "Hiro," said Wasabi, looking away. "I know you want to just find him, and then everything will be good, but—whatever's got him," he shook his head, "it's got him _deep_. And he's dangerous."

"That's funny," said Hiro, holding up the microchip, which tugged fruitlessly at his grip. "So am I."

The rest of the group stared at Hiro, and he closed his fist around the microbot.

"Hiro," said Fred, stepping forward, "you've got me." He looked around the others. "This is exactly what I've wanted to do—be a super hero. Help people. And there's no person I'd want to help more than Tadashi." He placed a hand on Hiro's shoulder. "So that's what I'm going to do."

The others started at them, and Honey Lemon sighed. "Tadashi is our friend. That's present tense." She crossed to join Hiro, Fred, and Baymax. She looked to GoGo, raising an eyebrow.

"Ugh," said GoGo, throwing her hands into the air in frustration. "Whatever. Tadashi's my friend. And I wasn't scared of him before—I could take him—but it's time to woman up." She joined the others, leaving Wasabi alone, staring back at the rest of the group. He sighed.

"Look, guys, I'm scared. I'm more scared now than I've ever been in my life. I'm scared for Tadashi, and for myself, but also for you guys." He took a breath, and continue: "Everything has a place, and it should be _in that place_—in the lab, I try to keep stuff neat.

"But now, there's an empty space in the lab, without what _should_ go there. And I want to fill it back up, so much—I want Tadashi back. But I don't want to rip open another unfillable hole." He looked down. "I need you guys just where you are."

Wasabi looked down, and before he knew it, he was wrapped in a huge bear hug. He lifted his head to find that Baymax had wrapped his arms around him, holding him in place. The others hesitated before stepping forward and joining in the hug. "I sensed that you are feeling—sad," said Baymax. "Often the best remedy is a good hug and support from friends."

"Thanks, Baymax," said Wasabi, a small tear forming in his eye. The group gave a final squeeze, and separated.

"So," said Hiro, his hands on his hips, his helmet under one arm: "I think you can trust us that we're going nowhere. So what do you say?"

Wasabi glanced around at his friends, and breathed a deep sigh. "Fine," he said. "At least I can keep an eye out for you, while we're at it."

"Great," said Honey Lemon, embracing Wasabi in another hug.

"Okay," said Hiro. "Then, let's get inside. Because we've got to strategize—and we've got to find Tadashi and Callaghan." He stepped past his friends at the door, where he paused, his hand on it. "And we're going to put an _end_ to this." He pulled open the door. "And I'm getting my brother back."


	7. Chapter 7

"We need to draw Tadashi out into the open," said GoGo. "Get him where we can ambush him, and take him out."

"Down," said Hiro, cutting into GoGo's small speech.

"What's that?" she asked.

"Down," said Hiro. "We're going to take him _down_." He turned away. "He's still Tadashi. We need to remember that."

"That's right," said Honey Lemon.

"That's fine," said Wasabi, "but we have to be ready if the need arises, to do what needs to be done." His eyes lingered on Hiro's for a moment before breaking off and turning away. "I know—but we need to be ready for whatever."

* * *

"We need to look into this again," said Honey Lemon, adjusting her glasses as she peered closer at the slow-motion security footage on the computer screen in front of her. "There's got to be _something_ we can use to get to Callaghan, something that might lead us to him." She watched as Krei spoke to some of the technicians readied parts of the experiment.

"Wait, what's that?" asked Wasabi, pointing over her shoulder.

"What?" asked Honey Lemon.

"There," said Wasabi. He took control of the keyboard from her, brushing Honey Lemon's hands away. He zoomed in on the space just over Krei's shoulder. "Who's that?"

"That's Callaghan," said Honey Lemon, as the computer auto-focused the image. "But that lady he's with…"

"That's Krei's assistant," said Hiro, leaning in as well. "I remember her from—the night…"

"Okay, but what's she doing back there with Callaghan?" asked Honey Lemon, pressing play on the video again. The film continued on in slow motion, and they watched as Callaghan and the assistant spoke for a moment, and Callaghan planted a firm kiss on her lips before they parted.

"She and—Callaghan?" asked Wasabi.

"That's—new," said Hiro.

"Wait," said Honey Lemon. "If he had a relationship with her…"

"…then she might have been in on the plan," finished Hiro.

"What do we do, then?" asked Wasabi. "I mean, how do we proceed?

"I've got a plan," said Hiro. "We just need to organize some things…" He glanced away and called off: "GoGo! How are you with intimidation?"

* * *

Krei's assistant, Julie, walked briskly down the sidewalk. She held in one arm a tablet computer, on which she had organized her boss's agenda for the day. A slight twinge in the back of her head indicated to her that she had not yet had a single cup of coffee that day. She moved her legs back and forth as fast as she could in her pencil skirt. She wasn't late, not yet, but punctuality was important to her—and her employer.

Her cell phone rang as she passed by a large bookstore with an outdoor terrace café. She shifted the tablet to her other arm and fished her cell phone out of her pocket. She didn't recognize the number, but she often didn't recognize the numbers of Krei's many business contacts. She answered. "Hello, Krei Tech, Julie Hand speaking…"

"Ms. Hand, I'm well aware of who you are, and your connection to the late Professor Callaghan."

Julie stopped walking, frozen. "E-excuse me?" she asked, he voice coming dry from her throat.

"I understand this might seem abrupt," said the voice through the phone, "but I'm going to need you to come with me. I have some questions for you."

"Who are you?" asked Julie, looking all around her. The person might be watching her at this very moment—she stood still, frozen in place by terror.

"I'm the good looking dude in the sunglasses," replied the voice. Julie looked around a bit more, and her gaze fell upon a young man within the café corral, wearing sunglasses and propping his feet up on the table in front of him. He gave her a wave. "Hey, Julie," he said through the phone. "You're going to follow me around the corner to a car I've got waiting."

"I…"

"And before you try to, like, go against what I'm saying or run away or something; realize we're ready to stop you." The young man nodded toward her, and she looked down, to see a small red dot of light quivering over her heart. Her breath quickened.

"Okay," she said. "Just—please…"

"Ah, don't do that," said the man on the other side of the line. "Just follow me, a little ways back." He hung up the phone and, shaking, Julie followed him around the corner.

* * *

Julie was led to the roof of a nearby office building, the young man and the woman who had been driving the car making sure she didn't get away. The woman smacked her gum as she popped a bubble and shoved Julie toward the edge of the building. She stood on the edge, and, glancing behind her, noticed the height at which she was standing. She wobbled and, almost panicking, pin wheeled her arms and leaned forward before catching her balance again.

The brown haired young man with the hat stepped forward. "So, tell me, Julie," he grinned, "What do you know about microbots, and the 'death' of Callaghan?"

Julie mustered the best poker face that she could, and smirked. "You aren't going to push me off of this roof. Your sniper doesn't have their sights on me now, and you look like a nice young man. Knocking me off of a building doesn't seem like it would be your style."

The young man grinned. "No," he said. "It's not my style. You're right." He stepped backward, and Julie let out a sigh of relief. The purple haired young woman took the gum out of her mouth and stuck it to the side of an air conditioning unit next to her. "But it _is_ hers."

The woman stepped forward and, with a firm side-kick, knocked Julie off of the roof.

Julie's heart leapt into her throat as she saw the rooftop disappear above her, as she fell backward in what seemed to be slow motion. Her arms pulled at the air, grasping at anything, but nothing was there. She closed her eyes, ready for the impact, when she was grabbed under the shoulders. Something caught her, and lifted her upward. She was brought upward, past the top of the building, and dumped her to the roof, on her hands and knees.

"Thanks, Hiro," said the young man. A large red-armored robot and his small rider touched down next to her. Another, larger man entered through the roof access behind the man and woman.

"Oh good, I missed it," he said. "I would have been terrified _for_ her."

"Come on, Wasabi," said the girl, giving him a slightly harder than playful punch on the arm. "We're playing bad cop/bad cop here."

"GoGo," said he small robot pilot—he must have only been a kid—as he dismounted and walked over to Julie, holding out a hand to her. "Now isn't the time for joking around."

"Well, then," said a voice from behind them all. A tall girl with long blonde hair also appeared through the roof access. "Let's ask her, now."

"Yeah, dude," said the young man she had first met. He stepped forward as she took the young boy's hand and stood up.

"What do you know about the explosion at SFIT? And Callaghan?"

"Don't throw me off the building again, please," said Julie, her legs trembling. She glanced over her should at the edge of the tall building.

"Answer the question, and you won't have to go for another fall," said the shorter woman, popping another stick of gum into her mouth. "Because we might forget to catch you, next time."

"I—I can't—Krei will _kill_ me."

"Krei?" asked the smaller boy, raising an eyebrow. "What does your boss have to do with this?"

"You didn't—what did you think happened?" asked Julie.

"Your connections to Callaghan," said the young boy, "as well as that you were at the presentation before the fire at SFIT. You and Callaghan burned the place down and stole the microbots. Now you're his contact in the real world, keeping an eye on Krei." The young boy raised an eyebrow. "We thought Callaghan was trying to get revenge on Krei for the death of his daughter."

"You really don't know Callaghan at all, do you?" asked Julie. Her mind wandered to her former lover, and shook her head at the theories that they had concocted. "He wouldn't hurt a fly. His daughter went into the wormhole, but he knew that it was her _choice_ as much as Krei's. She wanted the mission, and she knew the risks."

"So what does Krei have to do with this?" asked the tall blonde girl.

"You really have no idea, do you?" asked Julie. The bubblegum girl scowled and Julie reminded herself to check her words. "It's not a revenge scheme—it's a power scheme." She turned to the younger boy. "You're the kid who invented the microbots, right? Hamada?" He nodded. "When you turned down Krei's offer, he decided to take what you wouldn't give." She paused. "He is a man unused to refusal."

"So is he running what's going on with the microbots now?" asked the larger man, stepping in. "Is he responsible?"

"Yes, he is the brain behind the Yokai program." Julie glanced down, and back to the Hamada boy. She looked at his face, turned away from her at the moment—his dark eyes, and smooth face—and realized where she recognized his features. "You—you're his brother, aren't you?"

The Hamada boy pushed a tear from his eye and looked up to her. "I want you to tell me," he said, his eyes stern and his mouth set, "exactly what Krei is planning. If you don't, I won't hesitate flying you up another few hundred feet before dropping you."

Julie swallowed, _hard_. Despite her height advantage over him, Hamada intimidated her. "I—well…" She cleared her throat. "He plans on using the Yokai program to garner public sympathy, and rebuild his Silent Sparrow program."

"What about Yokai?" asked the taller man, raising an eyebrow. "How do we stop him?"

"How can we _save_ him," said the Hamada boy, shooting his eyes toward the man, who nodded.

"I am not sure," said Julie, her heart pounding in her chest. "I mean…"

"Out with it," said the woman Julie was pretty sure had been referred to as GoGo, smacking her gum. Her eyes bored into Julie, and she was very suddenly conscious of the group of people staring at her, the group of people who had kidnapped her and threatened her life. They couldn't have been more than twenty-five years old, at the most, and she was, even when frightened for her life, impressed by their resolve.

"The Yokai program is controlled through electrical impulses," said Julie, choosing her words carefully, speaking slowly. "First through electroshock conditioning heavily in the Kreitech lab. Once put into the field, he is controlled by a series of smaller, directed electric pulses and suggestions manipulated through his mask."

"So if we get the mask not only do we stop his connection to the microbots, but we also can stop Krei's hold on him," said the Hamada boy, placing his chin in the crook of his finger and his thumb.

"Not exactly," said Julie, continuing even more carefully still, conscious of the emotional stake the boy had in the conflict. "Due to the high of this amount of conditioning and control we've gone through, there is no way that he will be exactly as he was before."

"Are you saying the damage will be irreparable?" asked the tall blonde woman, her eyes growing dark with concern.

"Maybe not irreparable," said Julie, "but we haven't tried. We don't know how much lasting damage might be there."

"There's hope," said the Hamada boy. He turned to his robot and began to mount its back.

"What do we do now?" asked the large man in the back. "What do we do with her?"

"We'll use her to get in and break the stuff they're using to control Tadashi," said the Hamada boy from the back of his robot. "If we stop their control, we can stop him, get him back, and more on taking down Krei."

"So we don't' just go for the mask…" said the blonde. "We go for the main base. Approach it from a different angle."

"Wh—what are you going to do with me when you're done?" asked Julie, realizing her time to talk was coming to a close. "Krei won't let me just go after I've—I've betrayed him to you."

"We're not the cops," said the tall girl, shaking her head. "We can't keep you safe. That's—that's up to you."

Julie was frozen, but her legs were still able to quake underneath her. "What am I supposed to do, then?"

"I say, disappear," said the shorter woman. "Krei has to deal with us. With luck, he'll be too busy with us to even think of coming after you. And when we're done with him…" She trailed off.

"He won't have the means to finding you," said the shorter, aggressive woman. "Now, let's go. I'm sick of standing around."

Julie felt like she was going to be sick, speaking of, and she numbly followed them down off of the roof. Her arm brushed past her jacket pocket as she went, where her cell phone, unbeknownst to the young people who had kidnapped her, blinked softly with its GPS uplink.


	8. Chapter 8

"So what's your big plan?" asked Julie, struggling briefly against the bonds she was held in, where her hands and ankles were duct taped together. "Bring me in and don't think anyone's going to notice you? Report you to the police? This _is_ kidnapping."

"I don't think they're going to be too worried about that if we can get in and expose what Krei's been doing," said Hiro, who was seated next to her, uncomfortably close to her in the backseat of the car Fred had borrowed from his father's collection—a black sedan with tinted windows, perfect for their needs.

"You're just a bunch of kids," said Julie. "You don't know what you're getting into."

"And you don't know what we have at stake," said Wasabi, who was seated in the passenger seat of the car.

"I do, though, I know that…" Julie was cut off as a large spike of microbots crashed through the roof of the car, sending those inside dodging out of the way. GoGo slammed on the brakes, but the tendril of microbots seized Julie, whipping her out through the hole in the roof of the car, and flinging her into the other lane of traffic, where a car swerved to avoid her, almost causing a crash.

Fred let out a high-pitched scream and put his hands to his face, even when squished against the window. "Everyone, hold on," said GoGo, smacking her gum before pulling it out of her mouth and placing the small wad on the dashboard. She turned around, looking over her shoulder, and shifted the car into reverse. She started to back up at full speed, the tires squealing against the pavement. As she did, another car came up from behind, striking the sedan. The impact crunched up the back side of the car and cracked most of the car's windows. The passengers all lurched in their seats, and GoGo scowled. She shifted the car into drive and powered the car forward, sending them away from the car that stopped them. It was mere seconds before a column of microbots shot out of the pavement directly in front of the car. GoGo yanked the wheel to the side, causing the others to all fall over each other, even while buckled in, due to the centrifugal force. Another pillar of microbots sprung up in front of the car, and she was forced to pull up on the emergency brake as she slammed down on the brake pedal, bringing the car to a sudden halt. Through the cracks in the windshield, they could see the form of Yokai and his sea of microbots as they approached, surging like waves toward them.

"Everyone out. Out of the car!" Honey Lemon pushed Hiro, Fred, and Baymax out of the door, and into the street, Baymax squeezing a little bit as he popped out of the door of the car. They stood with the oncoming scourge of Yokai's microbots looming over them. A screech of braking tires came from behind them as another few cars pulled up, one of them an armored van. Some people in suits and sunglasses stepped out, some of them holding guns up. Yokai, with two big sweeps of his arms, created two large walls, on either side of the startled young heroes, leaving them with no routes of escape. Then, Yokai fashioned a few extremely pointed spikes, aiming them at the faces of his former friends. One of the men in suits stepped forward and held up a hand for Yokai not to make any more advancements.

"Not here," he said in a cool, calm, even voice. Hiro glanced past the men and women in suits with guns and realized that there were still _people_ around, bystanders who might see what Yokai was about to do, what the people in the suits were about to do. The people in their cars watched in awe as Yokai towered over them, and a few people were warded off by a woman in a suit with a gun when they tried to help Julie to her feet in the other lane. Two of the other agents picked her up under the armpits and dragged her into one of their cars. Hiro looked up to Yokai, and knew that under that mask, under the control of Alistair Krei, was his brother. However, there was no way for him to make any contact, not with the microbots surrounding them, and without their super-suits…

The man who seemed to be in charge of the agents stepped forward, his gun trained on Hiro. "You're the ringleader, aren't you?" Hiro scowled. "That's what I thought."

"Baymax," said Hiro. "Get ready…"

"You think we're afraid of your…" The man looked up and down Baymax, giving a half-laugh. "…marshmallow? No. We're more than equipped for this."

"Wh…" started Fred, but he wasn't able to finish his question. One of the agents had come forward, holding out a small remote control-looking device. She pressed the button as she neared, and Baymax held up a finger before emitting a low whine and deflating, bending over slightly.

"What'd you do to him?" asked Hiro, turning toward the woman who was retreating with the remote control and back to the man with the gun.

"Localized EMP," said the man. "Quite useful when dealing with a pesky robot like the one you've got there." He shrugged slightly. "In any case, he won't be busting you out of here. And unless you'd like to see what nasty things we can have our little puppet do with those useful microbots you were kind enough to design, I'd recommend that you and your friends come with me quietly."

Hiro glanced up, behind him, to where Yokai was perched atop his mass of microbots. He couldn't see through the mask whether or not Tadashi was looking back at him. Maybe if he made eye contact…

He was prodded in the back with the barrel of a gun, and the group of them was herded into the back of the armored van, Baymax being carried by two of the agents and hefted in behind them. They were roughly placed into benches on either side of the van, where their hands were handcuffed together in their laps. Baymax was slumped on the floor of the van between them, and two of the agents joined them. These agents were unlike the others, suited in what looked to be riot-proof body armor, complete with large billy clubs on their hips and helmets with face masks on their heads. They sat at the front of the van, with their backs to the partition that separated the prisoners from the drivers. They looked straight ahead, to the back of the van, without even seeming to notice the young people they were taking away. The back doors of the van were slammed shut, and the vehicle began to move away.

They were all silent for a moment. Honey Lemon's eyes were darting from friend to friend, her distress mostly stemming from theirs, and Hiro was concentrated on the deflated form of Baymax on the floor. This was the first time he'd been totally deflated and not in his charger and he just looked—dead. He wanted to look away, but he couldn't. The robot was so pathetic that it stung Hiro right in the pit of his gut. He realized just how much he cared about the vinyl blob—not just as a little gadget that was there for the ride, but as a friend.

"I'm sure we'll find a way out of this…" started Fred. He was cut off when one of the two guards drew their billy club. When they flipped a small switch on the side, blue sparks of electricity danced around the tip of it. It wasn't a billy club—it was a cattle prod.

"That's enough talking," said the other guard. "Just shut the hell up and wait for us to…"

He wasn't able to finish his sentence, either, as the guard with the cattle prod flipped their weapon around and sent it, with some force, into the small gap between mask and collar in his protective outfit. There was a sick smell of burning that filled the back of the van briefly as the man convulsed before slipping to the floor of the van, unconscious. The guard with the cattle prod pulled off his mask and threw it to the side, meeting eye contact with all of the wide-eyed teenagers. "That thing was squeezing my brain," said Callaghan. He banged on the partition between him and the drivers twice, and the can seemed to veer off track before continuing on. "It's good to see you kids again."

They simply stared back at him in stunned silence.


	9. Chapter 9

"Professor Callaghan," said Hiro, running a bit to keep up with the man's longer strides as he led them further into the warehouse hideout. "How did you survive? How did you get here? I mean, you were in that explosion…"

Callaghan chuckled and opened a door to a room with a table, some chairs, and a high ceiling. "I've learned something, Hiro. When someone wants you dead, sometimes it's easier to go along with it."

"But how?" asked Wasabi as he and the others took seats around the table, dumping their helmets onto the table with some relief. Fred slumped Baymax against the wall behind Hiro, plugging in the charging station Gogo had brought in with them before sitting down.

"I've taught at SFIT for years," said Callaghan. "You think I wouldn't know of a back door? Or maybe the basement room that was originally designed as a bomb shelter back in the 1950s?"

"Oh my God," said Honey Lemon. "Why didn't we—I mean, it should have been obvious…"

"I was hiding on purpose," said Callaghan. "I'm sorry I had to fool all of you, but it was easier to gain intel on Krei when he didn't know that I was even a factor."

"You knew it was him the whole time?" asked Fred.

"Who else could it have been?" asked Callaghan. "He's power-hungry. He wants to take over the city with his company, and he doesn't care who he hurts to do it." He paused, looking down. "Hiro, Tadashi wasn't the first one to be lost to his man."

"We're going to save him," said Hiro. "I know we can."

"Maybe," said Callaghan. "You understand how fragile this is—how fragile _Tadashi_ is—right now?"

"Yes, sir."

"Plus, he's figuring out how to build more and stuff," said Fred.

"What?" asked Callaghan.

"I found a mirobot in your office," said Fred. "I mean—either Yokai or Krei or something—was in there, rummaging around."

Callaghan looked away. "Krei would be able to reverse-engineer the microbots if he wanted to—he's familiar enough with the technology. He's ripped it off from _me_ enough times…" He paused again. "The only reason he would want to steal more information on it was if…"

"If he wanted to improve it. Make it a better weapon." Gogo popped a bubble and sat forward in her chair. "You realize he's going to make Yokai near unstoppable, right?"

"That just means we're going to have to make _our_ next move fast," said Callaghan. "We just need to figure out a way to find solid evidence against Krei. Then we can go public and take him out."

"Um, I don't know if you noticed this by our goofy outfits or not, but we're actual super heroes now," there was a slight cheer from Fred, which Gogo ignored, "and we can pretty much take him out without just 'going to the press' or whatever."

"I think that you're all going to want to see this," said Honey Lemon, holding up her cell phone. They all crowded in close to the small screen which was open to the _San Fransokyo Today_ website.

"He's opening up a new transport system?" asked Fred. "He's going after the trolleys now? What is sacred to this man?"

"That crazy son of a bitch is going forward with Silent Sparrow…" Callaghan turned and returned to his chair, where he sat down heavily. "I know he was going forward with it, but I didn't realize he would be doing it so soon."

"What is he planning?" asked Hiro. "And why would he be doing something as public as this when we've been coming after him?"

"But he's been using Tadashi for all of his dirty work," said Honey Lemon. "That's _why_ he's been using Tadashi."

"So what do we do now?" asked Wasabi. "I mean, we know he's doing this Sparrow thing, but…"

"What's that whole deal, anyway?" asked Gogo. "Professor Callaghan, it doesn't even say what kind of transport system this even is that Krei Tech is building." She paused. "You wouldn't know anything about this, would you?"

"You _did_ have an interesting reaction," said Honey Lemon.

Callaghan sighed. He rubbed his temples and closed his eyes before beginning to speak. "About ten years ago, we created the Silent Sparrow program."

"That's what we found on the island!" said Fred.

"Yes," said Callaghan. "We started there, and—you've been there?"

Hiro nodded, closing his eyes tightly as he did. The events of the island flashed behind his eyelids. The fight, the revelations about the wormholes, Tadashi…

"Did you see the machinery there?" Callaghan asked.

"Yeah—we were trying to stop Yokai from stealing it," said Wasabi. He slumped back into his chair more. "We didn't, though…"

"Damn it," said Callaghan. His hands balled up into fists on the table. "That's what he's doing—he's recreating the experiment on a grand scale. It's a dangerous path, and he knows that." The others looked to their teacher, waiting for him to continue. "Project Silent Sparrow utilizes multiversal portals for fast travel. It's also an imperfect technology. It's the things that…" He paused, taking a deep breath. "It took my daughter from me."

A silence hung over them, in the hideout room in the big warehouse. They didn't really look at each other, but in a glance, Hiro noticed for the first time that his friends seemed _tired_. They were in their battle suits, sweaty and dusty, but they were still _there_. They were here, and it was because they loved Tadashi.

The silence was broken by a soft _beep_ and the _whrr_ of a fan. Behind Hiro, a large, marshmallow-like robot stood up. "Hello," he said. "My name is Baymax, your personal healthcare companion." He looked around the table. "You seem—distressed. You need…" His databases fired. "…a hug."

"You bet I do, buddy," said Fred, getting up from his chair and sauntering over to Baymax. Honey Lemon giggled, even, and after a moment, Hiro got up and hugged Baymax as well. After another moment's hesitation, the others joined them, crowding around in a group hug. Callaghan looked on, a hardness in his face but a softness in his eyes.

"Okay, kids," he said. "Let's get down to business. We've got some work to do."

* * *

Julie lay in the hospital bed, her arm lying across her stomach in an unsigned cast, and her legs elevated by a pair of slings suspended from the ceiling. A few machines and monitors beeped softly around her head, and her chest rose and fell in a ragged rhythm.

She had been here for two days and had already experienced a few surgeries to get her bones back into the right places, with pins and rods. The doctors and nurses had been frightened more than once when her heart rate monitor had seemingly randomly began beeping very fast and unnaturally. They had rushed into the room to see her eyes wide, but nothing actually wrong with her. She was simply _scared_. Thanks to her internal damage, she was having a hard time mustering much vocalization, so the doctors and nurses had no idea why their patient, practically scrapped off of the road after being caught in the crossfire of that terrorist attack, was so afraid.

Tonight, though, the door did not open, and the window, slightly cracked, let in a soft but pleasant breeze. Julie wasn't asleep, but she was somewhere close to it. She found it incredibly difficult to fall asleep when there was always the threat of Krei.

_But_, she reasoned to herself, _there's no way he'd attack a hospital. It's too high-profile_.

That didn't stop her from hearing the sound of those scuttling microbots in the back of her mind. Even now, as she lay in her bed, staring up at the sterile white but very dark ceiling, she could hear the faint click rustle of the microbots moving in the back of her brain.

The breeze wafted over her again, and she breathed in the autumn air. It was sweet and gentle on her nose, and it was welcome after all of the uncirculated hospital air she had been breathing.

The clicking and rustling was still there.

The breeze seemed to die down, and Julie's face became warmer.

There was the clicking, again.

Julie was faintly conscious of the tightening of tiny metal bodies around her neck. Her heart beat faster, but the nurses knew now that the random spikes of fear in their patient would pass quickly, that the rapid beeping of the heart rate monitor would go down soon. They would check up on her if it kept beating fast, but otherwise, they would know she was fine.

They didn't have to worry about it beeping fast for long, though, because not long after, it flat lined. When the nurses rushed into the room, Julie was not breathing, and the window, wide open, let in a gentle breeze.


	10. Chapter 10

_A/N: Thanks to hobbit_hedgehog on Ao3 for the beta!_

"I'm almost in position," said Honey Lemon into the communication device in her helmet. She crept up the old subway tracks to the edge of the light that came from the exhibition. She stood back against the wall just beyond the light. "I'm here."

"Good," said Callaghan over the comm. He pulled his collar up a little bit higher, and stepped into the throng of people that was beginning to move into the subway station. On top of the building stood Hiro, hidden behind the big letters of the sign. Off to the sides of the foyer of the station were GoGo and Fred, back in the shadows where their conspicuous costumes wouldn't be noticed.

"I'm in position as well," came Wasabi's voice through the headphone system. He was on the opposite side of the station from Honey Lemon, also on the old tracks. Between them was a futuristic-looking setup. On the tracks was a pair of the large portal devices they had encountered out on the island in the Bay. Between the portals, on the tracks, was a something that could have resembled a small train car, except that it had no edges. It was all round, like an egg, and faced one of the mechanical rings. There were no portals activated, just the promise of them in the empty machines, apparently primed to go.

In front of the tracks was a podium, on which Krei stood, watching as people filtered down into the station, filling up the area, murmuring amongst themselves. Callaghan was among them, watching. Once the room was filled to its capacity, Krei surveyed, he room, and began to speak.

"I'd like to thank you all for coming to this opening today," said Krei, spreading his arms wide as he spoke. "This project has been the cumulation of years of progress by KreiTech, and represents a new future of transportation."

Hiro heard this through an earpiece on the roof. In the crowd below, Callaghan narrowed his eyes. GoGo, Wasabi, Fred, and Honey Lemon kept the radio silence, their eyes carefully scanning the environment around them. Hiro stared off into the bay as he listened, where the sun reflected off of the water. It was calm, compared to the crowd in the station below him. Whatever Krei was planning to do with this, it was going to happen _today_, and it was going to be more chaotic than the crowd already was.

Something was coming up from the water. Hiro stepped forward, his hand resting on the back of the "Krei Transportation" sign on the top of the building. He thought at first that it could just be a waterfowl or small boat, but as it emerge more, he realized what was really going on.

"I have visual," said Hiro. He pressed a button on the small control panel in the wrist of his suit.

"What's the situation?" came Fred's voice through the headset.

"He's coming in through the bay."

"GoGo and I are coming up," said Fred. GoGo smacked her gum into the comms.

"Honey Lemon, we've got the crowd control," said Wasabi.

"Be safe," muttered Callaghan into the collar of his coat. Krei was still speaking.

"Years of research and development have gone into this. Imagine—a commute that takes a total of five minutes from when you leave your home to when you arrive at work. No crowded trains. Not to mention the absence of smelly old subway stations like the one you're standing in once was." This elicited some laughs from the crowd. Callaghan's face remained stoic.

Just across the street from the exhibition, Yokai rose out of the Bay, the microbots spilling over into the road, stopping traffic. He moved steadily toward the Krei Transportation building, the microbots moving effortlessly across the pavement. When he was close enough, Hiro took a deep breath and jumped off of the top of the building, straight at the masked man.

Hiro almost reached him before the masked face snapped toward him, and he was hit by a club made of microbots and flung away from Krei Transportation, toward the Bay. Just as he was about to hit the water, a red and purple blur swooped under him and his electromagnetic pads did the rest. Baymax fired his rocket fist through the base of Yokai's microbots, causing them to scatter outward before reforming back to where they were before.

This did, however, get Yokai's attention. He whipped around to face Hiro and Baymax as Baymax's rocket fist returned to him.

Yokai sent a stream of microbots toward Hiro, but they were knocked away by Fred as he leapt into the air. "Oh, yeah!" he shouted, with a spurt of fire breath toward Yokai. At the same time, GoGo skated out from the building behind the masked man and tossed both of her discs straight at his face without stopping. Yokai was able to deflect one of the discs, but the other caught him in the chest, knocking him off-balance for a moment.

Inside, not a person noticed the ongoing fight except for Callaghan, Wasabi, and Honey Lemon, all aware of the action only via the earpieces they wore. Through these they were made more and more worried by a series of grunts and crashes. At the podium, Krei continued:

"So now, with this portal-based technology, cars of passengers will be able to travel near-instantaneously from one point to another. Reduced times, energy consumption, and hassle. We plan soon to install stations throughout San Fransokyo, and hopefully, throughout…"

Krei was unable to finish that thought because at that moment, something crashed through the front of the building and tumbled down the steps, through the crowd. Some of those assembled screamed, and a few were knocked over as people tried to run away.

"What—?" Krei seemed frozen at the podium, his hand wrapped around the sides of the top of its surface, knuckles white.

Fred got up slowly, the crowd around him writhing, looking for an exit, and found himself face-to-face with Yokai, who had followed him in. The microbots reared up to hit Fred and he had a voice in his comms: "Get out of the way, Fred!" He heeded Hiro's command, leaping other side just in time as Baymax barreled through the microbots, scattering them apart and knocking Yokai to the ground.

Honey Lemon and Wasabi stood by the edge of what had been, at one time, the train platform. They ushered the crowd, as best as they could, into the dark tunnel, away from the fight, on the far side of one of the empty mechanical rings. As Wasabi helped people down form the ledge, Honey Lemon tried her best to keep them—and herself—calm.

GoGo entered just as Yokai got to his feet and fired a pile driver of microbots toward Krei, catching him and pinning him against the back side of the old subway tracks, behind the sleek egg-shaped car. As Yokai's microbots did this, they knocked a switch on the podium, activating the portals on both sides of the car on the tracks. Yokai drew closer to Krei, but GoGo launched another disc at him. He whipped around to knock it away.

Callaghan was the last one Wasabi helped off of the platform. The open portal was glowing, not ten feet away from them. Before going on, Callaghan turned back to them. "I'll make sure that all of the people make it out safely. I need you all to shut the portals down. They're dangerous." Honey Lemon nodded, and Callaghan was off, jogging down to catch up with the rest of the panicking crowd in the darkness.

Fred jumped up, ready to fire a punch at Yokai's mask, but a hand made of microbots grabbed him out of the air and pinned him to the ground. GoGo retrieved her disc, and Baymax hovered a bit behind her.

"Why is Tadashi attacking Krei?" asked Honey Lemon over the comms.

"I don't know," said Hiro. "But it's too dangerous to let them fight here. The portals…" His words broke off as he was grabbed by microbots, pulled away from the podium's controls—which he'd nearly reached—and flung backward into a video screen with Krei's smiling face on it. The screen spiderwebbed as Hiro fell to the floor.

Honey Lemon and Wasabi made their way back into the action, Wasabi leading the way by knocking microbots away with his laser-blades. "Help!" shouted Krei, but no one paid him any attention. Honey Lemon punched in a series of chemicals on her purse and produced a bright yellow orb, which she gripped in her right hand, crouched behind Wasabi, until just the right moment. Then, she lobbed it over at Yokai, catching him in the legs. A yellow foam blossomed out around the impact site and immediately hardened, solidifying Yokai's legs together.

Yokai's attention turned from the heroes to his legs. He used the microbots in a spinning motion to try to saw through the tough glob. Wasabi used this chance to run for the portal controls. Yokai, however, swung a stream of microbots at him, knocking him directly into the portal.

That is, he would have entered the portal had Fred not leapt up and caught him, bringing him safely back to the train platform.

Wasabi was hyperventilating beneath his mask.

"You going to be okay?" asked Fred, his large clawed hand on Wasabi's armored shoulder.

"Yeah," said Wasabi, his hand on his chest and his breathing returning to normal. "Yeah, I will. Thanks—I owe you one."

This whole ordeal, however, seemed to show Yokai—who had just finished getting rid of the last of Honey Lemon's chemical trap from his legs—the true extent of what the portals could do, and the fear they could potentially instill in a person. He removed Krei from the all and moved him toward the glowing circle behind the car. Now, for the first time, Krei began begging in earnest.

"Help!" he shouted. "Oh, God, help me! Put me down!" He struggled against the microbots, but Yokai did not lose his grip.

Hiro watched this and hesitated for a moment. He could allow Tadashi to put Krei through the portal and end him, but what would that make Tadashi? Sure, Krei deserved to disappear into the place Abigail Callaghan had, but that wasn't Hiro's decision to make. And whatever was going on with Tadashi, it was not his choice, either. _Someone_, maybe Krei—or apparently, maybe _not_, considering the way Tadashi was treating him—was making the actions for Tadashi, but Tadashi was going to have to be the one to live with it.

"Baymax," said Hiro, "get Tadashi." He released his electromagnets from Baymax's back and dropped to the floor as Baymax rocketed forward toward Yokai.

The man in the mask shot out an arm of microbots toward Baymax, but GoGo leapt into the air. Using her wheels as blades, she spun through the microbots, breaking them apart just long enough for Baymax to envelop Yokai in a big bear hug.

Wasabi leapt back into action, still breathing hard from his close encounter with the portal, using his plasma laser blades to take out the microbots holding Krei. Honey Lemon quickly threw a chemical concoction below the falling man, which blossomed into a pillowy green substance. Krei fell onto this without getting hut, and Fred immediately scooped him up, leaping up the stairs and out of the station.

While this was all going on, Hiro rushed to the podium, where he hit the switch back to "OFF." The portals powered down, the colorful swirls disappearing from their centers.

"Get his mask!" shouted Honey Lemon, a command that was twice as loud over the comm system. Baymax held on as tight as he could, but the microbots were swarming around him, prying between his big arms and Yokai's body.

Hiro got a running start and leapt up at Baymax and Yokai, reaching out his arms as he did. He caught on with one hand and knee to Baymax's electromag pads, and used his momentum to swing around to face Yokai. For the briefest moment, through Hiro's visor and Tadashi's mask, their eyes met. Hiro could've sworn he saw some sort of recognition in Tadashi's eyes, but in the next moment, microbots crashed Hiro into the back wall of the station, the back of his head cracking against it. His vision swam briefly before everything went black.

* * *

Hiro reawakened to Honey Lemon and Wasabi waiting beside his bed. He began to sit up immediately, and they both quickly pushed him back down. "No, Hiro," said Honey Lemon. She was dressed in street clothes, rather than her battle suit. "You can't sit up too fast—you might pass out again."

"Arugh…" groaned Hiro, rubbing the back of his head gingerly. A huge lump had grown there, beneath his hair.

"Thank goodness you were wearing your helmet, or you could have died," said Wasabi.

Hiro almost sat upright again, and the two of them carefully pushed him back down.

"Tadashi!" said Hiro. "And Krei!—what…?"

The two looked at each other and then back to Hiro.

"Krei…" Honey Lemon began, but wasn't sure how to continue.

"It's been all over the news, Hiro," said Wasabi. "How masked heroes saved Krei from a terrorist attack…"

"He—he did it all just to get the public on his side!" exclaimed Hiro.

"Callaghan said that it was to get them in support of his new transport system, probably," said Wasabi. "He wanted us to save him. And it's working."

Hiro balled up his fists in his sheets and slowly pulled himself up into a sitting position. His two friends held out hands to push him back down if he moved too fast, but he was careful enough not to require their admonitions. When he was finally upright, he looked to them.

"And Tadashi?"

"He got away," said Honey Lemon. "Baymax let go of him to help you, and he fled down the tunnel." She paused, and then threw herself onto Hiro, her arms around his neck. She held the hug for a moment before releasing Hiro and sitting back.

"Oh," was all Hiro said, looking not at his friends but at nothing in particular on the wall.

"The others are downstairs with Cass," said Wasabi, "explaining how you fell down the stairs at school." He nodded to Hiro. "And Callaghan returned to his hideout."

"We'll regroup tomorrow," said Honey Lemon. "But—but for now, get some rest. Please."

"Yeah," said Hiro. He gave a weak smirk, but till stared at nothing in particular as his friends got up to leave. "Thanks."


End file.
